Monday, June 29, 2015

“The most famous fashion streets in Rome are three parallel streets that all meet up with Via del Corso, starting from Piazza di Spagna or near there: Via Condotti, Via Borgognona and Via Frattina. The most famous of the three is Via Condotti, which owes its name to the channels that carried water to the Agrippa thermal spa baths. Today it is one of the most elegant streets in the world, lined with the shops of the most famous fashion labels such as Bulgari, who opened his ‘atelier’ here in 1905, Hermés, Cartier, Ferragamo and Battistoni, a historical Roman atelier of male tailored fashion that was a favorite of the Duke of Windsor.”

Friday, June 26, 2015

“Greg Kotis had the idea for Urinetown while traveling in Europe. A traveling student on a budget, he encountered a pay-per-use toilet, and began writing shortly thereafter, joining with Mark Hollmann for the journey to Broadway. Initially, no production companies were interested in optioning the musical, but finally the Neo-Futurists, an experimental theatre group from Chicago, agreed to produce Urinetown for their 1999–2000 season.”

Thursday, June 25, 2015

“In the case of Santa Maria dei Servi, the piazza in front of the basilica was quite small—which permitted building a wide arcade around it that encloses the entire square without interruption. The arcade is closed on one side by the conventual buildings, but on two sides it is open to the street, and extends along the entire left side of the building. Where the arcade meets the facade, it forms a ‘narthex’ or wide portico of five arches, stretching across the front of the church. The arcade has a decorative cornice and circular moulding on the spandrels echoes the ocular window in the facade.”

“Drawing inspiration from the area he grew up in, the forests of upstate New York, Kenyon’s bulbous sculptural forms in cement, wool, and other organic materials are rooted in George Bataille's concept of informe (1929). Curated by Alberto Salvadori, the exhibit is comprised of 13 new works created by Kenyon specifically for this unprecedented Florentine project, works which will be housed in the Marino Marini Museum crypt. Produced in italy, the sculptures constitute a key juncture for Kenyon, as formal combinations fusing elements typical of his work, such as the untamed nature of shapes and the inherent anarchy of free matter to discover its own form despite breaking with rules of construction—while considering as well the formal symbolic conventions of renaissance architecture as represented in the museum crypt space.”

Monday, June 22, 2015

“In the 1980s and 1990s, many people felt that Chadwick's work had failed to evolve - but they simply were not looking. His Stairs, of 1991, with two figures passing in opposite directions, is one of the most telling representations both of movement and of human relationships in sculpture. Similarly his High Wind IV, of 1995, emphasises that he, in his work, had retained in old age all the vigour and wit of his best known pieces of sculpture from his earlier phases.”

Sunday, June 21, 2015

“Parco della Musica was designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano. Jürgen Reinhold from Müller-BBM was in charge of acoustics in the three concert halls; Franco Zagari was landscape architect for the outdoor spaces. The three large concert halls are Sala Petrassi, in memory of Goffredo Petrassi, about 700 seats; Sala Sinopoli, in memory of Giuseppe Sinopoli, about 1200 seats; and Sala Santa Cecilia, about 2800 seats. They are structurally separated to ensure soundproofing, though joined at the base by a continuous lobby. A fourth ‘concert hall’, called Cavea, is the open air theater recalling ancient Greek and Roman theaters. The fan-shaped layout is formed around the central piazza.”

Thursday, June 18, 2015

“Scott added an elaborate Gothic porch (1858–1860) facing Cornhill. It is decorated with carving by John Birnie Philip, which includes a high-relief tympanum sculpture depicting ‘St Michael disputing with Satan’. Scott inserted Gothic tracery to the circular clerestory windows, and into the plain round-headed windows on the south side of the church. New side windows were created in the chancel, and an elaborate stone reredos, incorporating the paintings of Moses and Aaron from its predecessor, was constructed in an Italian Gothic style. A contemporary account of the work explained that this was appropriate since ‘the classical feeling which pervades the Italian school of Gothic art enabled the architect to bring the classical features of the building into harmony with the Gothic treatment which our present sympathies demand’. The chancel walls were lined with panels of coloured marble, up to the level of the top of the reredos columns, and richly painted above this point.”

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

“Bethesda Terrace is considered the heart of Central Park. In their original plan, Park designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux envisioned a sweeping Promenade (the Mall) that led to a grand terrace overlooking the Lake. The magnificent carvings represent the four seasons and, on the side facing the Mall, the times of day. Today, Central Park Conservancy employs a sculptor to care for the sandstone carvings and sculpture and a zone gardener and their crew to take care of the landscapes. In the summer, aquatic plantings such as water lilies and lotus are placed in the fountain, reviving a 19th century tradition.”

Saturday, June 13, 2015

“If you were Bolognese, you'd be used to it, pass it every day on the way to market, lean against the edge of it, never give it a second thought. But the fountain of Neptune in Bologna's main square does come as a surprise to visitors because of the four lounging ladies around the base and the alpha-male Neptune who dominates the eponymous square. Lactating Nereids were popular in Italy in the mid-16th century, a manifestation of the high Mannerist style. Neptune’s fountain was commissioned to celebrate the newly appointed Pope Pious IV, Giovanni Angelo di Medici; architect Tommaso Laureti completed his work by 1565. Two years later Jean de Boulogne added his muscled giant, earning himself ever afterwards the nickname ‘Gianbologna’.”

Thursday, June 11, 2015

“This house experienced different stories. According to some, it belonged to an intellectual jovial fellow and he made it an artistic and literary place. But the house was on the way of San Michele’s funeral processions and it was maybe used as a an autopsy theatre. Corpses used to stay here the night before they were buried. For some others, it was used as a warehouse by smugglers, that spread those legends to keep people away. There is also a long and tedious story with a three-person household including a defunct flirt and a jealous husband. Nowadays though it is not secluded anymore, the Casino degli Spiriti seems to be still haunted. Some pretend they heard strange noises. Some others say its lugubrious aspect is enough to scare you. The house was bought by English that re-decorated it richly (in a strange way though : a bathroom was papered with black tapestry only). Nowadays the ghost story slightly died away but its name survived. But a few years ago two criminal gondoliers (today in jail) robed a lady, murdered her, cut up her body, put into a bag and threw it into the canal, near this tragic and gloomy house.”

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

“The Postfuhramt in Mitte's Oranienburger Straße is a large, elegant brick building originally constructed in the 19th century as a distribution depot and stables for Berlin's horse-drawn postal wagons. Currently it is being used as an exhibition center by gallery C|O Berlin. The Postfuhramt was constructed between 1875 - 1881 to plans by architect Carl Schwatlo. It was heavily damaged during bomb raids in 1943 and 1944, although the building has largely been reconstructed. Until 1989 it was used by various incarnations of the German postal service. Following German reunification the building became surplus to requirements and stood empty for several years. Between 1997 and 2001 it was used for various exhibitions. Since 2006 it is being used by C|O Berlin.”

Monday, June 8, 2015

“The French capital has had a definitive falling out with the estimated 1m “love-locks” that it says are threatening some of the city’s most historic monuments. On Monday, workers armed with bolt cutters closed off the celebrated Pont des Arts over the Seine, where a railing collapsed last year under the weight of so many locks, and began breaking hearts around the world. Parisian officials have had a turbulent relationship with the trend since it hit Paris in 2008. When the first dewy-eyed couples began declaring their undying love by writing their initials or names on a padlock, attaching it to a monument and throwing the keys into the River Seine, it seemed relatively harmless. Since then, however, the locks have grown like metal barnacles over bridge railings, palisades, and parapets. Some have even been spotted on the Eiffel Tower.”

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Rucellai Sepulchre, Rucellai Chapel
Deconsecrated church of San Pancrazio
Florence, April 2015

“The Cappella Rucellai, also known as Santo Sepolcro, was quickly executed and concluded in 1467, as is attested to by the date inscribed in Latin above the entrance door, and is a scale copy of the building in Jerusalem (said to be Christ’s original tomb) which circulated in numerous drawings in the Renaissance. It was the modest tomb chapel of the patron, Giovanni Ruccellai, who was pretty much the second richest man in Florence at the time.”

Saturday, June 6, 2015

“Just up the road from the Tate Britain on London’s Millbank sits a giant purple flower! Overlooking the Thames and sitting near to Vauxhall Bridge it’s just the latest in a series of striking sculptures popping up around the World from Croatian artist Ana Tzarev. Titled ‘Peace’ it won’t be there forever in fact it was placed in it’s current location on Riverside Park Gardens just after this years Chelsea Flower Show and is mid way through a six month residency. Afterwards the four metre high fibreglass sculpture will no doubt move on to somewhere else, taking it’s message of Peace with it.”

Friday, June 5, 2015

“In 1903 Emperor William II of Germany donated to the Italian State a Monument to Goethe by Gustav Eberlein; the poet is shown standing on a colossal Corinthian capital and is surrounded by statues portraying characters of his works Iphigenia in Tauris, Mignon and Faust. Two years later the Romans watched the arrival of a French reply to the German gift: a monument to Victor Hugo by Lucien Pallez; because the French writer's association with Rome was rather loose (he visited the city when he was six) the inscription quoted a speech he made to praise Garibaldi.”

Thursday, June 4, 2015

“The return of the equestrian bronze statue of Louis XIV is excellent news. The location designated by the public establishment, in front of the Avenue de Paris, is indeed the best possible choice. Louis XIV will continue, to the chagrin of those who claim that this work is of no artistic value, to welcome visitors to Versailles. The group, first installed in 1836 between the Gabriel and Dufour pavilions (at the site of the royal grill destroyed at the end of the 18th century), is made up of two distinct elements originally. The horse, sculpted by Pierre Cartellier, was to be used in the production of an equestrian monument to Louis XV commissioned by Louis XVIII in 1816 for the Place de la Concorde in Paris, replacing Bouchardon’s which was destroyed during the Revolution. It was finally founded in 1829 by Charles Crozatier and completed with a Louis XIV produced by Louis Petitot, Cartellier’s son-in-law, then finished in bronze by Crozatier. Severely damaged, the group was removed from its original location to make room for the mediocre modern grill which claims to restitute the one by Hardouin-Mansart.”

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

“Palazzo Venier dei Leoni was probably begun in the 1750s by architect Lorenzo Boschetti, whose only other known building in Venice is the church of San Barnaba. It is an unfinished palace. A model exists in the Museo Correr, Venice. Its magnificent classical façade would have matched that of Palazzo Corner, opposite, with the triple arch of the ground floor (which is the explanation of the ivy-covered pillars visible today) extended through both the piani nobili above. We do not know precisely why this Venier palace was left unfinished. Money may have run out, or some say that the powerful Corner family living opposite blocked the completion of a building that would have been grander than their own. Another explanation may rest with the unhappy fate of the next door Gothic palace which was demolished in the early 19th century: structural damage to this was blamed in part on the deep foundations of Palazzo Venier dei Leoni.”

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

“All our Ducks are named after female Shakespearean characters: Mistress Quickly, Beatrice, Desdemona, Titania, Miranda, Elizabeth, Portia, Rosalind. Four of our Ducks took part in the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Pageant on Sunday 3rd June 2012. Desdemona featured in the film ‘Nativity 2’ starring David Tennant. The ‘minions’ from the Movie ‘Despicable Me’ have enjoyed a tour. Rosalind was used in the hit US TV series ‘Band of Brothers’”